The Universe Opposition
by lightsthatguideus
Summary: or, the story of a guy named Steve, with the universe against him, meeting the gang, along with The Notebook, a drunken Penny, and Howard and Raj's unrealized homosexual tendencies. S/A, with some L/P, if you squint.


Steve had a growing suspicion that the universe was totally against him.

It had been one thing after another, all day and every day. For the last month, apparently. It all started, from where his calculations went, when he burned that sandwich in his microwave, and henceforth, commenced to blowing up the entire left side of his kitchen. All he had wanted was a nice, succulent turkey sandwich with slightly melted cheese on top, and it had quickly become a bird on fire with a piece of cheese still clinging to the remains of the plastic that he'd forgotten to remove.

So yeah, that was when he spent his paycheck trying to fix it.

And of course, it turned to be one thing after another. His brother embezzled money from his company, so he had to help pay the bond (and pay for Jack's new prison buddy, Big Ice, to start a poetry club.) And, after that, his girlfriend (you know, the one that he was going to propose to), leaves him for some old waitress at the Stop n' Go that looks like Betty White on steroids. And it's all la la land until his boss fires him because his nineteen-year-old grandson who doesn't seem to know the meaning of the word "shower" and/or "deodorant" has decided to take up the family business.

And, of course, the icing on the cake was when he was set up by his brother with some lame date, and he forced him to sit through a reading of "The Notebook."

So many other options. They could've seen "The Lucky One," or gone to some expensive French restaurant; hell, he would've even rather sat through the first three seasons of "Gossip Girl" before he went to a reading of _The Notebook. _I mean, seriously. Did he trod on some ancient burial ground or piss off some enchanted witch, because if he did, universe, he was _sincerely _sorry. But really. You had to go for the Notebook? And you had to make the date get cramps? And you had to find out that there's no refunds and it's storming outside and you just _had _to find out that those "free snacks" on the flyer turned out to be shredded carrots and bowls of K Cereal? I mean, really?

"_Somewhere_," _muses Noah Calhoun, while sitting on his porch in the moonlight,_ " _there_ _were people making love_." The reader looked up from her coffee, a light-hearted tear in her eye, and looked about the group of middle-aged women with a warm heart that had grown three sizes that day. The girls around her all cooed, various questions of why every man can't be like Noah. _They can be, _Steve thought bitterly. _You'll find em on the corner of fantasy, on nonexistent lane, and you'll have to go to 123 Gaytown._

He sighed, and checked his phone. Two more hours until the reading was over. That meant he had exactly two hours to strain out a long, long, _long _fantasy of Jennifer Aniston, and keep it clean, because the girls next to you keep giving you the same looks your boss's old assistant LaFanz gave you.

"All right, gang," Ms. Peters said to the readers as she dabbed at her eyes with a hankie. "We'll have to take a short break; please enjoy your snacks, and remember-"

The entire group (excluding Steve, of course), chanted- "It's never too late to find love!"

As everyone got up, Steve noticed another male was in the crowd. He was sitting several chairs down from him, wearing a Flash t-shirt with his brown hair combed to the side. Normally, Steve would smirk at the obvious nerd (of course, out of bitterness and the fact that his life sucked), but at this moment, he was grateful that he was wearing the same bored expression as he was. And, let's face it. Steve was desperate.

He leaned in towards him, and said, "Boring as hell, huh?"

The man turned his head, and nodded, a look of exasperation on his face. "While I'm sure that the religious view of 'hell' is more or less painful, and not boring, I agree in all completeness," the man answered, the holding up his hand in an "amen to that brother" sort of way. "I don't at all view the social standard of Nicholas Sparks' literature in any form of brilliant fiction to be an acceptable one."

Steve tried to puzzle out what he'd said, but said, "I hear ya'," anyways. Then, out of curiosity, asked, "Your old lady drag you here too?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so. Despite Amy's mostly-steady intelligence, she often finds herself drawn in by the peer pressure of my affectionately harlet-like neighbor, Penny. I'm afraid that this friendship has garnered a love of irrelevant things, and now has sought casualties such as perfume, American Idol, and yes..." He flung up his hands about the heart-covered room. "Romance novels."

Steve was slightly puzzled (mostly by what most of he'd said), and nodded slower, trying to remember his high school vocabulary test. "Yeah, sure," he mumbled.

"I'm Dr. Sheldon Cooper, by the way," Flash-Guy said. "I suppose you've heard of me-I recently published a popular fan fiction labeled "A Fastidious Intoxication of the Night Periods" in the Star Trek section of the site. You'll find me under the pairing of Kirk & Spock, platonic of course. It has garnered an average of two reviews every nine chapters. My user name is softkitty."

Steve furrowed his eyebrows, this time not bothering to reply. Instead, he simply held out his hand, and said, "I'm Steve."

Sheldon looked with disgust at Steve's hand, and shook it tentatively, only touching half of the middle finger. Immediately after, he reached into his pocket and pulled out what appeared to be baby wipes, and swabbed his fingers with a rapid pace.

He noticed Steve's look of confusion, and explained, "No offense to you, of course. It's just, most humans on an average don't wash their hands after releasing their bowels and such-I went through too much with my lactose-intolerant roommate who apparently doesn't realize the meaning of the word 'flush'."

"I get it," Steve answered, and started to regret picking up conversation with Sheldon. _Maybe if I'm lucky_, he thought. _I can sneak out and hitch a ride with that one pimp that comes around here sometimes..._

But remember? The universe was against Steve.

A woman sat in between Sheldon and Steve; she was short, with straight hair, slightly hunched shoulders, and rectangle-shaped glasses. She looked positively ecstatic.

"This is a glorious book, isn't it, Sheldon?" Amy asked, smiling to herself. "I think that the most impression feat of Nicholas Sparks is his ability to comprehend the love between Ally and Noah as well as put in Ally's opposite attraction to her fiancé."

Sheldon shot Steve a look, that said plainly, _see what I've gotta put up with, brotha?, _before turning to Amy and answering, "I hope that you do realize that this is entirely a work of fiction, and that the realism of two exes meeting up and having nothing more than a scandalous affair is both highly unlikely and laughable."

"And it's realistic that one might find themselves on a spaceship with a pointy-eared alien and showing up on the most random planets that seem to be more or less inspiration for many Saturday Night Live sketches?"

Sheldon glared at Amy, but kept silent. Steve stifled a laugh, and almost tried to make conversation with Sheldon and Amy again, but was interrupted with Ms. Peters coming back to her stool, copy of the book in her hand, and asking, "Are you ready to get started, ladies and..." she looked towards Sheldon and Steve, "gentlemen?"

Ironically, lightening struck at that moment.

* * *

Many words were passed in between the new friends that had come to the reading-a series of phone numbers were exchanged, and Steve found himself more popular around that ladies than that one time in junior high when he broke his leg falling off his little sister's bike (he told them it was a dirt bike, and the cops were chasing after him, and a squirrel that had gone through radiation and could talk might've shown up, but what's the difference?) Of course, most of the phone numbers were for their daughters who, from the pictures they showed him, weren't exactly what he'd gotten in junior high.

But remember? The universe was against Steve.

Especially because of the fact that he found himself still standing outside of the building, looking for a taxi, cursing himself for playing Fruit Ninja instead of preserving his phone's battery somewhere around Chapter Nine. He stayed next to the door, shielding himself from the rain, and hoped to God that somewhere out there, there was a hot blonde in a pickup truck just recently dumped by her boyfriend that would show up.

And of course, there was one, but some other guy who got dumped there hitched her before Steve could.

Stupid universe.

"Excuse me?"

He turned around, and saw that Amy, the woman at the reading, was standing next to him, an umbrella with the words "Science is Fun!" circling around the top above her. "I believe you became acquainted with Sheldon," she said. "Would you like a ride home?"

Desperate and a little high off the coffee they'd given them, Steve nodded, and followed Amy to a modest silver Honda, with Sheldon sitting in the front seat.

He climbed into the back, and was instantly greeted by, "Stephen, I hope that you'll take my side on the debate-Amy has wondered if we should go and get some Thai food, but I said that we should get Chinese. Obviously, since she picked the location for date night, would it not be appropriate if I chose the venue to dine at as well?"

While Steve didn't answer, Amy immediately popped into the driver's seat with a somewhat clever comeback, and the debate commenced, several times spoken in different languages that Steve sometimes heard his Ethiopian neighbors speak, before he realized that they were heading to a bar instead of the address he'd told them.

"What are we doing?" Sheldon asked, a nervous sweat breaking out on his forehead.

"Calm down, I'm merely playing as a 'designated driver' for Penny," Amy answered calmly, and Sheldon's tense shoulders loosened up, but the thought of this drunk woman named Penny seemed to make him instead, frustrated.

"If she picks up some home-dicky who kind of looks like Ryan Secreast again, I will make a point of walking home."

"You have to admit, he was extremely convincing, Sheldon."

"Not only was he blonde and Scottish, I'm not entirely convinced he was born to the gender that he claims!"

Their "playful bickering" (as they had dubbed it), was interrupted when an attractive blonde swooped into the back seat, extremely intoxicated and wearing a shirt that Steve's mother would've disapproved of.

Maybe his luck was turning around, he thought, as he waved to who he assumed to be Penny.

But remember? The universe was against Steve.

A short man with glasses came in next to her, just as drunk and twice as vulnerable (he took one look at Steve and asked, giggling, "Do people ever tell you that you kinda look like Cindy Crawford?)

(Of course, the worst part was, that was kind of true. Damn his feminine good looks.)

* * *

"Thanks for the ride," he told Sheldon, covering himself up with his leather jacket. The rest of the ride hadn't been any more satisfactory that the first half-Sheldon and Amy had commenced in a game somewhat similar to charades, except they acted out particles and physicists and at some points, superheroes (though he did admit, Sheldon did a pretty impressive Iron Man.) And when Penny and Shortstack began to make out, well, Steve just told the universe to cut off his dick and be done with it.

"It was no trouble; you did very well acting out Stephen Hawking," Sheldon replied (Steve hadn't bothered to mention that he'd just caught him in mid-sneeze.)

"Thanks," Steve answered, and waved goodbye to the four before heading to his door.

"Uh, Steve?"

He turned back to Sheldon, a ready look on his face.

"I've recently been awarded two tickets to the L. A. Dodgers baseball game; they'll be versing the New York Yankees." He threw his hands up in the air as if to say, 'big deal.' "And since I have no profound interest in baseball, and your t-shirt holds the face of Derek Jeter, would you like to attend?"

Maybe the universe wasn't totally against Steve after all.

* * *

But, of course, it rained that day, Steve lost ten bucks, and when he ran into Derek Jeter and was able to get him to sign a baseball, he signed it "Stephanie."

Oh well. At least he made some friends.

* * *

Who would eventually invite him over for game night, where he lost two hundred at Monopoly to a short little Jewish man and his Indian boyfriend.

But he remember to take the plastic off the cheese when he made the snacks.

It was the first step.

* * *

_I don't know what this is. I just kind of felt like seeing the gang from someone else's perspective._ _Too bad I chose Poor Steve._

_If you've seen this fic before, it's probably because I'm going through "spring cleaning", which is basically a stupid way of saying that I'm going through all of my fics and editing them while watching Dance Moms and eating Nutella._

_Review please, and don't forget to check out Sheldon's fan fiction! The average is going up to three reviews every nine chapters!_


End file.
